Queensland floods

Queensland's capital is preparing to face its worst flood disaster in 118 years with the Brisbane River expected to peak on Thursday morning as floodwaters head toward the city.

Yesterday Toowoomba was hit with a huge wall of water which they describe as something like an inland tsunami. Nine people were killed and about 60 are missing.

The area in Queensland that is flooded is about the area of NSW. So many people have lost their homes and belongings.

Today we went to the tennis at the tennis centre at Homebush. We watched a match between Chris Guccione, Australia and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, Spain. This game took four hours as they had to keep stopping because of showers and Garcia-Lopez ended up winning 7-6, 7-5. We had tickets to watch games on the outer courts and began watching another girls match before the rain took over and we went home.

The other night I watched a movie which was a true story about a French journalist, author and editor of the French fashion magazine Elle. His name was Jean-Dominique Bauby and in December 1995 at the age of 43 suffered a massive stroke. When he woke up twenty days later, he found he was entirely speechless. He could only blink his left eyelid. Called "locked-in syndrome" this is a condition where in the metal faculties remain intact but most of the body is paralyzed. In his case his mouth, arms and legs were paralyzed and he lost 27kg in the first 20 weeks after his stroke.

Despite his condition, he wrote the book "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" by blinking when the correct letter was reached by a person slowing reciting the alphabet over and over again using a system called "partner assisted scanning. He composed and edited the book entirely in his head and dictated it one letter at a time.........amazing! His book was published in France in March 1997 and he died of pneumonia two days after the publication. He is buried in a family grave at the Pere-Lachaise cemetry in Paris. What an inspiration he was.